According to operationhope.org, Hope Inside is a community programme that serves adults, youth, disaster survivors, and employees with financial programs. The programme was designed to improve the financial well-being of its participants by equipping them with financial knowledge and the tools required to create a more stable future. The program is available to Bank of America account holders and non-account holders, and it aims to help people build savings, decrease debt and improve their FICO (credit) scores.
The organisation partners with financial institutions, corporations, municipal agencies, and community organisations to deliver its programs and services at no cost to the client. According to Bank of America’s head of Community Banking, the financial counselling programme will expand in 17 US markets starting in January 2023. At the time of writing, the programme is available in Atlanta and Los Angeles.
According to a Q3 2022 report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the total household debt in the US rose by USD 351 billion or 2.2%. It reached a total of USD 16.51 trillion in the third quarter of 2022 while mortgage balances, which represent the largest component of household debt, rose by USD 282 billion and reached USD 11.67 trillion at the end of September.
The report also mentions a 15% year-over-year increase in credit card balances, which is the largest in the past two decades. Credit card balances are nearing their pre-pandemic levels, after sharp declines in the first year of the pandemic. Auto loan balances increased by USD 22 billion in the third quarter, continuing the upward trend that has been in place since 2011.
Other balances, including retail cards and other consumer loans, increased by USD 21 billion, following the USD 25 billion increase from Q2 2022. As for student loan balances, they contracted slightly and reached USD 1.57 trillion, which is down from the second quarter of 2022.
According to consumerfinance.gov, for financial educators and others who work to help consumers take greater control over their financial lives, a number of indicators that are the target outcomes of financial literacy programmes, such as financial skills, confidence, and effective money management behaviours, appear to have strong and positive relationships with financial well-being.
Financial educators and their partner researchers can leverage the CFPB Financial Well-Being Scale to assess and track changes in financial well-being and to measure how different programmatic approaches contribute to the financial well-being of the people they serve.
The scale contains 10 questions to capture how people feel about their financial security and freedom of choice, plus 2 questions to assist with scoring. Responses to the questions can be converted into an overall financial well-being score between 0 and 100.
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